


Thank You, Claire

by Lif61 (UltimateFandomTrash)



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: F/M, Hallucinations, Injury, Jim Lake Jr. Whump, POV Jim Lake Jr., Whump, Wizards (2020), Wizards (2020) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25877038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UltimateFandomTrash/pseuds/Lif61
Summary: Lost in the Wild Woods, and in pain, Jim is surprised to find Claire helping him. But how is she there? Wasn't she in Camelot?
Relationships: Jim Lake Jr./Claire Nuñez
Comments: 2
Kudos: 63





	Thank You, Claire

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a TAT ask from @the-wandering-whumper involving a character injured and hallucinating a friend that helps them.

It was dark in the Wild Woods, something Jim Lake Jr. had learned to be grateful for. Without darkness, there would be no life for him. And now, on two occasions, Claire had saved him with her shadow magic, with darkness. If only she were here now.

Jim figured he was lost.

Callista could no longer be seen through the trees, and her stomping steps through the undergrowth no longer graced his ears.

Chest aching, searing, breaths struggling in through his lungs, he was left weak, dizzy. The shard hadn’t reached his heart, not yet, but all this movement was exacerbating the deep wound. Had it reached his left lung? Was that why he couldn’t breathe? Why his vision blurred? Or was that the shock from the pain?

Jim kept walking, and then he stumbled, crying out as he found himself jostled. And then he hit something, the world tumbling. His arms, legs, and back were all slammed repeatedly against hard, unforgiving rock, great bursts of pressure followed by bruising soreness radiating through his stone skin to the human blood beneath. And then the worst happened: He fell onto his chest, and the shard was pushed deeper.

Screaming from the pain, he finally skidded to a stop at the bottom of a steep hill dotted with boulders — Jim wouldn’t be surprised if he’d hit all of them on the way down. He tried to rise, even as his chest burned, as heat flowed through his blood, and a mix of dark emotions clouded his mind. The placement of the shard had moved, changing the pressure of which it was stabbed into him, and now blood seeped out onto his armor. It dripped onto the grass as Jim tried to raise himself up with his arms.

A great flash of agony ripped through him, nearly enough to make him sick, and he rolled, collapsing onto his back, looking up at the shadows of the trees.

He was shaking, shuddering, and he felt so cold. Being half-troll provided a great many bonuses, but apparently he wasn’t impervious to human shock.

A growl left him as the sharp soreness flared. And flared, and flared…

“ARGH!”

Vision blurring, mind splitting from the torment he thought he’d grown used to, he didn’t have the awareness that screaming was dangerous. Gunmar and Bular were in the woods, the humans were surely on his trail.

But he screamed till he was breathless — which didn’t take long given the position of the shard between his ribs, and against his left lung. The muscles around his chest couldn’t help the lung breathe and expand properly, and since it was at the upper part of his lung, it ruined the chance of the bottom part receiving all the needed oxygen.

Jim’s vision blurred, the pain of the shard throbbing deep in him, and a tight sensation built up in his left lung, like if he breathed too little or too deep it would pop.

To his surprise, a familiar hand was brushing his hair aside, feeling his forehead.

“Claire?” Jim asked in a voice roughened from pain. He struggled to focus, and then she wavered in his vision above him. “I thought you were at the castle.”

She took his hand, and started trying to pull him up despite him being much larger than her. “I came to help you, dummy.”

Always ready to protect the people in his life from the darker side of things, he opened his mouth to lie that he was fine and didn’t need her help. But then, as he was sitting up, panting, the shard seemed to pulse in him.

He held onto Claire, bowing his head to press their foreheads together. One of his large hands was at the back of her neck, holding her close.

“It’s… It’s dangerous,” he panted.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m here. I’m not leaving you, Jim Lake Jr., and you can’t make me.”

Jim wanted to argue, to tell her to go, to leave him. That would be the smart thing to do, the survivor’s move. Yet, a selfish part of him just held her closer, and then he stood, feeling stronger with her by his side. She tugged on his hand, and started leading him through the Wild Woods, past the boulders that had so effortlessly beat him up with the help of gravity, and deeper into the shadows of the trees.

“How — How do you — know where you’re — going?” Jim asked as she kept him walking.

Jim nearly collapsed and had to lean against a tree, barely able to hold himself up. Claire let him pause, and she began caressing his face, fingertips gently feeling over his stone lips. And that’s when he realized he was feeling the softness of skin, not the metal of armor, and, focusing hard to bring her into his vision, he looked down and saw she was wearing a dress. During such dangerous times she seemed naked standing there in that dress, skin so vulnerable. Anyone could hurt her while she was like this.

“Claire,” Jim asked, grabbing onto her shoulder tightly, insistently, “where’s your armor?”

“Come on,” she told him, dragging him along once more.

He remembered a different time, different woods, where he and Claire had run and chased each other, and he’d been told off for kissing her because they’d been training. It hadn’t felt like training. It’d felt like… well, like playing, especially with the new troll emotions. Now, he was used to them, but even with the pain he started getting the urge to chase her, to kiss her on the cheek to surprise her, to pick her up and carry her, and watch her laugh and pretend to struggle. Then she’d break free, and he’d give chase once more.

A lazy smiled crossed Jim’s face the deeper they went into the Wild Woods. Darkness enshrouded them, and trees gave way in some places to gray towering rock that blocked out the sky.

“Claire, you need to go,” he told her.

“No, I’m not leaving you.”

She kissed him, and Jim tried to turn it into more than just this chaste touch, needing her to realize he wanted to take care of her, that her safety was important, that it was urgent that she leave him.

Blood trickled from his chest anew as his breaths deepened. His lung ached, but it didn’t pop even if that’s what the pain seemed to threaten.

He collapsed onto his knees.

And Claire wasn’t holding him anymore.

When he blinked open his eyes, vision blurred in red agony, Claire was gone.

As he toppled backwards, lying down, barely able to stay conscious, he realized she’d never been there.

Now the pain he felt was from missing her, from loneliness, but, unlike him, at least she was safe.

Jim’s eyes slid closed, just as he heard Callista coming for him.

Seeing his love when he closed his eyes, he murmured, “Thank you, Claire.”


End file.
